Renaissance Revival Walnut Library Table (ca. 1870) Part 1

Recently I have been working on the restoration of a Renaissance Revival Library Table made around 1870. The table is made primarily of American Black Walnut and uses Poplar as a secondary wood. The secondary surfaces are veneered with Poplar and White Oak and the secondary wood on the drawer is made from Mahogany. This is a very nice example and was made with some attention to detail. The carving throughout appears to have been executed by hand and great pains were taken to give this table a finished appearance throughout. One particular example of this that I found interesting was that the underside of the table was made up of a mix of Poplar and Quartersawn Oak. Where the Poplar boards were used they were veneered with Quartersawn Oak so that if one were to look at the underside of the table you would see all Quartersawn Oak surfaces. This certainly is a lot of extra work but again, the cabinet maker was going for the look of a refined piece where no part was left untouched. Likewise, the use of finished Mahogany as a secondary wood on the drawer is a nice touch where a lesser piece might have unfinished Poplar or Oak.

The table was in pretty bad shape when I received it. All of the joinery was loose and in addition, the stretcher assembly below was badly damaged. There were also several pieces of missing trim that needed to be made. The top surface was covered with a piece of Naugahyde that was badly damaged and not original to the piece. The customer decided to have new leather installed which I will cover in Part 2 of this post. The condition of the finish was pretty good, but it was buried beneath a lot of dirt and old wax. I decided that this finish could be restored once it was thoroughly cleaned.

Here is a photo of the table as it came to my shop.

This photo details the condition of the Naugahyde top.

As you can see in the photo below, the table had some very nice carving on it.the detailed finial below is seated at the midpoint of the stretcher. this photo also shows the condition of the finish.

As stated above, the stretcher assembly was badly damaged. A large section of this stretcher was missing and needed to be patched. Below is a photo of the damaged area.

After cutting a patch to cover the damaged area, the patch was clamped in place and a scribe was used to mark its location on the board below.

The next step was to carve away the wood so that it could receive the patch. Once this was done the patch was glued in place. The photo below shows the entire stretcher assembly being glued and the following photo shows the patch being glued in place.

This photo shows the patch glued in place after the glue had dried and the clamps were removed.

The last step was to carve the patch to fit the profile of the stretcher. after this was done the patch was sanded. Below is a photo of the completed patch.

As I stated earlier, the joinery of the entire table was loose. To glue the loose joinery, I had to first dismantle the table and clean all of the old glue from the joinery. Here is a photo of the parts disassembled and marked for reassembly.

After the old glue was cleaned off, the table was reassembled with fresh glue. Below you can see the table reassembled.

One last repair was to replace missing trim around the front legs. Below is a photo of the molding stock I made that I used to make the trim pieces.

This detail photo shows the replacement trim being glued in place.

Meanwhile the top had several areas with loose veneer. The photo below shows the veneer on the top being glued in place.

Likewise, the underside of the top had several loose areas as well. The pieces of wood seen in the photo below were tacked in place to hold the veneer while the glue dried. Wax paper was put in place to separate the blocks and prevent them from getting glued to the table.

The last two photos show the table with the cleaned finish and new finish added to the old. The next step will be to apply the new leather to the top surface which will be detailed in the second part of this post.

Victorian Walnut Side Chair (1860-1880)

the chair below dates from the mid to late Victorian era and probably fits into the Renaissance revival and Eastlake periods. The overall design was one that was used throughout this time. Later examples (some of which can be seen in earlier posts) have burled Walnut veneer applied to the back rails. this example had a hand carved floral motif on the back stretchers, uprights, and demi-arms. The turning below the seat is finely made and has more definition than most chairs if this type. the overall material used for the chair is Walnut with the exception of the side stretchers being turned from Hickory. The Joinery is all doweled with the exception of the stretchers forming the back if the chair, which have mortise and tenon joinery.
The chair was loose throughout and needed some finish work, but the main repair was that the seat had broken where the front legs mortise into the seat. The chair and the break can be seen below.(thanks to the customer for supplying the first two photos!)This photo shows a close up of the break .The break was right where the Tenon for the leg and the doweling joining the seat together converged. As seen in the photo, there wasn't much room left for wood! Once the seat was removed I noticed the seat frame had been patched before using pine instead of Walnut. All of the patches were crudely done and were where the separate seat sections joined together. they were also loose so I removed them and patched them with Walnut.Here is a photo of the seat frame being glued and the patches being put in place.Here is a photo of the chair dismantled and different cracks being glued in the legs.Here is a photo of the chair being reassembled. I will post more photos of the restoration of the finish in future posts

Completed Renaissance Revival Plant Stand

Below are several photos of the completed Walnut plant stand with its veneered top. The color is the natural color of aged Walnut. Unlike most woods, Walnut lightens with age. The only part of the table that was lightly stained was the new veneer which was stained to match the color of the table. To view the complete restoration process for this piece follow the link below:

http://johnmarkpower.blogspot.com/search?q=plant+stand

Turning Appliques for a Walnut Plant Stand

Lately I have been working on a Victorian plant stand made of Walnut. To see other posts concerning the restoration of this piece you can follow the links below:

http://johnmarkpower.blogspot.com/2010/02/renaissance-revival-walnut-plant-stand.html

http://johnmarkpower.blogspot.com/2010/03/veneering-walnut-plant-stand.html

The last step in the repair process for this piece was to turn several ornamental appliques for the table that were either missing or badly damaged. Below are some photos of the turning of the new appliques.

Below is a picture of one of the broken appliques. the originals had a turned tenon which connected them to the piece. Each applique was about 1 inch in diameter.Here is a photo of the blank chucked in the lathe and ready for turning.The first step is to turn the basic shape as seen in the photo below.The shape is then refined and sanded and the last step is to turn the tenon seen behind the disc of the applique. After everything is finished then the tenon is separated from the rest of the blank using a band saw.Here are two of the appliques after being turned.The last step was to hand carve the four lines seen below into the discs.Here is a photo of one of the new appliques attached to the foot of the table. the one to the left facing the left of the picture is an original.

Veneering a Walnut Plant Stand

Recently I have been restoring a Walnut plant stand Ca. 1870. To view the first entry on this piece, follow this link:

http://johnmarkpower.blogspot.com/2010/02/renaissance-revival-walnut-plant-stand.html

When repairing the top of this table I noticed that the underside of the top had been veneered. The reason for this is that it is common practice to veneer both sides of a surface so that there is less of a chance that the surface will bow or move. If you ever look at the edge of a piece of plywood, you will notice that the plys are always in odd numbers. that is so there is an equal amount of tension on each side making the whole more stable. The same is true with veneering a table top. The problem here was that the top veneer was missing!

This table has had significant work done to it in the past so most likely the veneer was damaged and simply removed. The customer and I agreed to re-veneer the surface. Below are several photos of the process.

The first step was to prepare the surface by filling any indentations and sanding the surface to remove any old finish left over. Here is the prepared surface prior to veneering.

Here is the Walnut veneer chosen for the top.Once prepared, the top surface is coated with hide glue.The veneer was then laid in place and clamped for several days with ply wood and long blocks to make sure the entire sheet had good contact.Once removed, the sheet was glued to the top. You can see where the glue permeated the veneer in some places. this is sanded off before the veneer is finished.Here are two views of the veneered table with the veneer sheet trimmed to size. The veneer Will be stained lightly to match the color of the table before finish is applied.

Renaissance Revival Walnut Plant Stand (Ca. 1870)

I recently picked up a Walnut plant stand that needed to be repaired and refinished. At some point this stand had been repaired and refinished. The last person to refinish it used a random orbital sander on the table which left orbits in the wood. A vigorous sanding by hand should solve the problem. The main problem with the table was a crack in the top. The underside of the top was missing a large wedge of wood so I did not feel comfortable simply gluing it back together. The repair I made utilized butterfly patches, which are patched that are bow tie shaped which straddle the crack. these help to keep the top from coming apart in the future. the photos below show the removal of the old finish and the repairs to the table.

Here is a photo of the table as it came to me. This photo shows the crack in the top.
The table after the finish was removed and the loose parts were separated. After the top was glued up I cut the butterfly patches and laid them out on the underside of the table. You can see the amount of wood missing from the underside of the table. The top side came together pretty well.A close up of one of the butterfly patches.Using a Forstner bit and a chisel, I carved out the space for each patch to fit into.The patches glued in place. The space is made a bit shallower than the patch so that I can then plane off any excess material making the patch flush with the surface.A close up of a butterfly patch installed in the surface.The three patches installed and the crack filled. This will all be touched up later to hide the work.

Here is a photo of the table being glued up.